How To Handle Hyperactive Kids Over The Holidays

Do you ever wonder how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays? HowToLearn.com medical expert, Frank Barnhill, M.D. gives several tips on exactly how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays.

Parents and teachers of hyperactive children usually feel the stress of dealing with behavior- problem children year-round, but that stress almost always intensifies during the rush at the end of the year holiday season. Here are some reasons kids get more hyperactive and a few important tips on how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays:

Hyperactive children display worse behavior-both hyperactivity and impulsivity- during November and December because:

• Colder weather keeps them from playing outdoors and burning up a lot of their excess energy and working through periods of impulsivity. This is one reason why it is important to know how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays.
• The excitement of the season and the pressure they feel to be a part of all of that glitter and speed creates hyper-stimulating circumstances which just serves to drive their tendency to distraction, hyperactivity and impulsive behaviors. In some ways, television and internet ads for toys, video games and electronics add to these problems, as these ads tend to hyper-stimulate and fascinate children to push them to try to convince parents to buy the product or experience.
• The expectation of “getting-out-of-school” creates distracting thoughts that interfere with the ADHD child’s ability to maintain focus, pay attention and delay gratification.

• Parents and teachers of hyperactive children often feel they have to be more focused on the stress of the season instead of finding out new ways and exactly how to help hyperactive kids over the holidays. 

• They will want to know how to help their child with behavior problems and deal with his or her stress.

• Often, children with ADHD and other behavior problems won’t show their stress until the levels become over-whelming or unbearable and then; their bad behaviors erupt like a volcano. That’s the reason so many parents just don’t understand why little Johnny can act so good for days at a time and then suddenly-wham-they are unbearable. Unlike most adults, children can’t tell when their stress levels are getting dangerously high and that is why parents must know how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays.

Parents and teachers of hyperactive children can have fantastic holidays just by following a few common-sense guidelines for how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays!

When you’re looking for new ways about how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays, parents and teachers of hyperactive children can help decrease ADHD behavior, hyperactivity and impulsivity during the holidays by applying techniques used in behavioral training. Here are a few of the tips I pass on to parents and teachers of ADHD children and children with behavior problems:

• Keep them busy!
• Limit the amount of advertising they are exposed to.
• Involve them in making decisions about what the family plans to do during the holidays and then give them responsibility to do part of it.
• Help them make good decisions about gifts for family and friends and let them feel good about giving gifts and helping those in need.
• Keep them busy! Find ways to help them burn up all of that energy.
• Give them guidelines about what to expect when they are still in school during the final days and the type of behavior you expect from them.
• Likewise, give them a clear idea of what type of behavior you expect while they are out of school and at home or at grandmas or visiting friends or shopping.
• Help them write letters to Santa so that you can guide them in balancing what they wish to receive for Christmas or the holidays. With your help they will learn the best mix is not just toys and entertainment items, but a mix of clothing, educational items, personal hygiene tools, and things that promote inventiveness and good hobbies.
• Keep them busy! Let them wrap presents, even if it means the packages won’t quite look as good. They have to learn sooner or later and this helps build self-worth and practical skills.
• Another great tip on how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays is to arrange for them to have social outings with friends, church, or other family. Remember how you finally learned the “right way” to socialize with others? I bet it was because your mom pushed you into social occasions and you were literally forced to learn how to get along with others while at parties, sleep-overs, church functions and school events.
• Keep them busy! Let them help prepare food for your celebrations. Every child needs to learn the basics of cooking or preparing food and there’s no better time than now. Once again, not only are these learning moments, but they create good memories and add to a child’s level of confidence and self-esteem.
• Spend one-on-one time with them to teach them how to think about what they want to do or what they are about to do when they feel the need to be impulsive or hyper.
• Here is one big must do as you learn how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays. Keep them busy! They should have the very same chores during the holidays as they have during the rest of the year. And, if you wish to push their behavior training a little further, add more chores to their load, but don’t forget to reward them for the extra duty.

As you can see, there are many ways that a parents and teachers of hyperactive children can help ADHD children and children with behavior problems control hyperactivity, impulsivity and irritating behaviors during the holiday season. As you’ve discovered during our discussion, helping a child deal with ADHD behavior or disruptive behaviors can be a form of behavioral therapy.

If you learn to use these very same behavioral training techniques year-round, I bet you’ll see an improvement in your child’s behavior even when it’s not the holiday season! In addition, guess what?

I’m willing to bet that the stress levels parents and teachers of hyperactive children will go way down as your child’s behavior improves with each successive day with these tips on how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays.

Here’s a previous article with even more tips on handling ADHD and behavior problems during the holidays: Preventing ADHD behavior problems during the holidays.  Dr. Frank Barnhill is a HowToLearn.com expert and practicing physician.  Visit his site MistakenForADHD and ADHDBehavior.com for more information on how to handle hyperactive kids over the holidays.